The new not-Oculus Rift! It's totally not an Oculus Rift that we've just ripped off. "We have the deepest respect for them, which we're showing with the most since flattery we can come up with," said the guy behind such masterful 'successes' as PlayStation Eye, and the PlayStation Move, both of which were horrible implementations of something that everyone else was already doing, unlike this thing apparently.

"To reiterate, the new PlayStation Virtual Boy is going to be a huge success because of the reasons on this horrible Powerpoint chart, including the fact that it's for everyone because we have no idea who our target market is."

Sony's previous peripheral track record has raised a rather large number of red flags. Their devices have been expensive, under-supported, half-baked--or any combination of the above.

I also wonder how an intrinsically isolating technology like VR will play out in the living room; At least gaming PCs have a pedigree for what can be stereotyped as the one-person-in-the-basement gaming experience.

Still, the PS4 install base is huge, and any modest adoption rate will naturally spill over into the realm of Oculus Rift. Even if the Morpheus isn't cross-platform compatible, I don't imagine that would stop developers from releasing their games as broadly as possible.

If this thing means I can be playing PS games at the same time my SO is playing Xbox games, in the same room, then it might be worth it. Bonus points if our son can wear a second one and play PS games with me.

It uses "a" 1080p display? One? Let me guess - that 90° FOV comes from dividing a single HD screen in half, giving each eye a square of pixels. Oh, and because having a square aspect ratio is a little too lame, even for them, they've added optics to stretch that square out into a rectangle for each eye. Am I getting warm?

Fully agree. I'll be interested to see Microsoft's version when they make one. If they do one thing well it's peripherals (original Microsoft mouse; natural keyboard; sidewinder joystick; xbox controller; kinect).

Like the Oculus Rift, then, which I believe is a 1920×1080 screen split in half. Since most of the pixels are being used for center-vision (which is what's important), with peripheral vision being served by a small number of pixels being stretched out with optics, it apparently works pretty well.

The big issue Sony is going to have is that a PS4 is designed to push pixels to a TV, not a low latency VR headset. This is actually hard to do, and you're likely to end up with PS3 level graphics from your PS4 when you switch it to headset mode. The Rift has an advantage here in that it's being fed by a beefy modern PC in most cases.

There's about a bunch of reasons to do it like this. You can make your pick between abysmally bad stereo rendering technology (bad latency, bad drivers, what have you) to abysmally bad multi monitor rendering (bad latency, bad viewport management, etc) and the simple fact that for a game developer splitting one viewport in two is vastly much easier to acomplish than anything else.

The bottom line is that for reasons outside of the control of oculus VR, display technology simply sucks, and splitting a single screen in two pieces is the most workable solution for the time being.

Even if this doesn't pan out for Sony, I am glad they are making the attempt. This can only further the development of VR games, which should be beneficial to the Oculus Rift, in that more mainstream attention will be diverted to VR.

That said, I do hope that Oculus Rift does emerge as a market leader for VR headsets. I would much rather play games on my more powerful PC, than have to buy a Ps4. The PC games market is just so much richer and more diverse than any other gaming platform.

The new not-Oculus Rift! It's totally not an Oculus Rift that we've just ripped off.

I'm guessing you're unaware that Sony already have 3D viewing headsets available at un-Godly prices. They don't have head-tracking, but in a world of Sony Eye and Kinnect that's hardly a stretch. Occulus Rift, like most technology, builds upon previous products, it didn't just happen in isolation.

In answer to some other questions people have raised - the Morpheus has a separate box handling the heavy processing, apparently, which is why the headset looks so svelte. And splitting a 1080p screen will theoretically give you something like a 4:3 view for each eye, and this is what the Occusul Rift does as well, but so long as it's filling the majority of your view it shouldn't matter. I'm sure in time they'll be splitting the equivalent of a 4k screen - a resolution that actually makes sense when you have it that close to your face.

I would much rather play games on my more powerful PC, than have to buy a Ps4.

Are you sure? If you're using a controller for your PC games, then sure, but if you plan on using mouse and keyboard... and can't look at the keyboard, will you be okay with that? I'm in two minds. I have a Logitech G13 which I can mostly use without looking at it because I'm not having to move my hand about. I guess this will be field-tested over the next few months when the consumer version of the OR becomes available.